STTR Phase I: High performance polymers from biomass

这一小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目解决了获得可持续化学品和燃料来源的需要。这项提案旨在解决在高性能聚合物中使用的化学品的问题，该化学品的总可寻址市场每年超过70亿美元。这种工艺的一个关键要求是为了经济可行性而提高转换效率。我们提出了一种集成的生物热化学平台，用于生产可用于生产不饱和聚酯树脂的单体。通过将我们的单体与其他单体共聚，可以微调聚合物的性能，从而达到预期的成本和性能要求。该项目的智力优势在于高产量的生物过程与选择性的化学转化相结合，以开发经济上可行的以生物为基础的生产大宗化学品的过程。拟议的研究将包括测试用于单体与其他共聚单体聚合的各种催化剂，然后对这些聚合物配方进行表征。这项工作的另一个方面是筛选下游加工方法，以按要求的规格生产单体。在全面开发后，该工艺可以以当前市场价格的一半生产一种大宗化学品，并以可再生资源作为原材料。这将转化为降低最终客户的成本，并与现有的基于石油的工艺相比减少70%的温室气体足迹。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the need for obtaining sustainable sources of chemicals and fuels. This proposal aims to solve the problem in the context of a chemical with uses in high performance polymers with total addressable market in excess of $7 billion per year. A key requirement of such processes is high efficiency of conversion for economic viability. We propose an integrated bio-thermochemical platform for production of a monomer which can be used for production of unsaturated polyester resins. The polymer properties can be fine-tuned by copolymerizing our monomer with other monomers so as to achieve desired cost and performance needs. The intellectual merit of this project is in the high yield bioprocess coupled with selective chemical conversion to develop an economically viable bio-based process for production of a bulk chemical. The proposed research would involve testing of various catalysts for polymerization of the monomer along with other co-monomers, followed by characterization of these polymer formulations. Another aspect of the work would be screening of downstream processing methods for producing monomer at desired specification. Upon full development, the process could produce a bulk chemical at half the current market price, and with renewable sources as the raw inputs. This would translate to lower cost to end customers and a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas footprint relative to existing petro-based process.